Adam Miller says Dignity Health Arena will get new marquee, seating, solar canopy and ice-plant upgrades
Loading...
Summary
Adam Miller of the Dignity Health Arena Theater and Convention Center described recent and planned upgrades: a new vertical marquee, replaced seating and a higher-resolution ribbon board, a solar canopy with battery storage coming this summer, and a needed ice-plant replacement to maintain ice operations.
Adam Miller of the Dignity Health Arena Theater, Convention Center, Amphitheater at Park at Riverwalk and the ICE Center said the venues are getting a suite of upgrades designed to modernize signage, improve fan comfort and cut energy costs.
“We are kinda reimagining the the the look of the marquee,” Miller said, adding the arena will replace the old two-pole horizontal sign with “1 large pole, kinda like a monument, with a vertical sign, kinda like you see in Las Vegas on the Strip.” He said the current marquee has reached its “end of life” after about 10 to 15 years and parts are no longer available.
The upgrades already completed include a wholesale replacement of every arena seat last summer; Miller said the new seats are black and more supportive after the previous seats lasted roughly 25 years. The arena also installed a higher-resolution ribbon-style advertisement board to replace an older scoreboard that had likewise worn out.
Miller said a solar canopy and a battery system for the parking lot are scheduled to enter construction this summer. “So this summer, we, should be going into construction with the solar array and a battery,” he said, describing the canopy as fully covering the parking lot to provide shade and noting that the battery will be located in the arena’s lower level. He emphasized the battery is intended for load shifting—charging overnight when power is cheaper and discharging during higher-cost daytime periods—not as a backup power source.
Plans for the solar array were previously delayed because a proposed high-speed rail alignment once threatened part of the parking lot; with the rail route now shifted away from that area, Miller said the project can proceed.
Miller also raised a maintenance issue at the ICE Center: the ice plant is about 20 years old and uses a brine refrigerant (salt water) that has corroded metal components. “The ice plant at the ice center is decaying, and is in need of replacement,” he said, adding that without a functioning ice plant the facility cannot make ice for skating and hockey.
Neither Miller nor the host provided construction schedules beyond the solar project’s upcoming summer start, and no funding amounts or approval votes were mentioned on the episode. Miller and the host framed several items as necessary life-cycle replacements—signage, seats, the ribbon board and the ice plant—rather than discretionary upgrades.
Next steps reported on the episode: the solar canopy and battery are expected to go into construction this summer; the other items were described as completed (seats and ribbon board) or in need of scheduled replacement (marquee and ice plant).
